Blues Traveler's John Popper brings his new band on tour

Chad Berndtson

Monday

Apr 25, 2011 at 12:01 AMApr 25, 2011 at 2:40 AM

John Popper has no plans to abandon Blues Traveler. Quite the opposite, in fact, with the band’s 25th anniversary approaching in 2012 and plans to go all out to celebrate. But to hear him talk about the Duskray Troubadours, the new pop-, folk- and roots-flavored band he formed last year with friends old and new, is to hear no small degree of liberation.

John Popper has no plans to abandon Blues Traveler. Quite the opposite, in fact, with the band’s 25th anniversary approaching in 2012 and plans to go all out to celebrate. But to hear him talk about the Duskray Troubadours, the new pop-, folk- and roots-flavored band he formed last year with friends old and new, is to hear no small degree of liberation.

“Blues Traveler for the last 25 years has been keeping me, you know, pretty busy,” Popper, 43, said in a recent interview. “Around 2007, during Blues Traveler’s 20th anniversary, I started getting the sense that the way we were writing songs was getting sort of assembly line. That happens when you have 11 or 12 albums under you, and you’ve written them all pretty much the same way. I think we got to a point where we started writing the same songs over and over.”

The core of the six-piece Duskray Troubadours is a decades-long friendship between two of its members: Popper and Jono Manson.

A fixture of New York nightlife in the 1980s, Manson is perhaps best known for his group from the era, the Worms. But for Popper, he was a mentor and a spiritual guide when Blues Traveler arrived in the Big Apple from New Jersey in the latter part of that decade, only a few years before Blues Traveler became famous.

So even though the Troubadours project isn’t the first time Popper’s pursued solo projects – he’s released several previous solo albums, including a jammy collaboration with DJ Logic, and played with supergroups like Frogwings – a formal collaboration with Manson was especially meaningful.

“I knew I wanted to do this with Jono and scout some musicians, so I got down to Austin (Texas) and we came up with a few ideas, and then started finding people. I knew the chemistry would be there,” Popper said. “Jono and I always knew we wanted to do something together.”

Joining Popper and Manson are bassist Steve Lindsay, drummer Mark Clark and guitarists Kevin Trainor and Aaron Beavers. The Duskray Troubadours sound – and self-titled debut album its members recorded in Santa Fe, released earlier this month on 429 Records – isn’t far off the Blues Traveler path. But it is, in Popper’s own words “melodic, and maybe a little softer.”

“Every musician has to play what they know,” he said. “The honesty is all you have to work with, because in the end the audience can smell when you’re faking it. You can believe in these songs – it’s a genuine connection when you can develop that with an audience.”

How would Popper separate these songs and this style from Blues Traveler, apart from the different personnel?

“Blues Traveler is very … epic,” he said, after a pause. “It’s very acrobatic. Every solo there is me going for broke. But when you’re older, you’re trying to say a little bit more with your music. I’d say it’s not in conflict, but in contrast with what I do with Blues Traveler. In Blues Traveler, we tend to end songs with big, epic, rumbling jams, so when Duskray Troubadours songs just kind of end, there’s this moment of silence that’s weird for me and for the audience. And I love that. It’s a very different aspect.”

Duskray Troubadours shows focus on the album’s mix of groovy, hook-filled Americana, R&B and pop, and also include songs from Manson’s extensive catalog and that of Beavers’ main band, Shurman.

Popper said the band throws in a few familiar Traveler chestnuts, too.

“Just for insurance purposes, we’re going to do a few Blues Traveler songs,” Popper laughed. “’Run Around,’ maybe, ‘But Anyway’ is a fun one. I have to tell you, though, it’s pretty awesome not to sing ‘Hook’ every night. ‘Hook,’ I wrote in a ridiculous key when I was 27 or 28 just to show what I could do, and I love that song, but I’d like to go back in time and slap myself. Singing that song is a lot. ‘Hook’ is the widowmaker.”

Time away from Blues Traveler has been rejuvenating, Popper said, for both himself and the band. Anticipating a blowout year of touring for its 25th anniversary, the band is playing minimal shows this year. Blues Traveler also just wrapped a songwriting session for its next album, and for the first time, Popper said, introduced outside writers to aid the songwriting process. Songs partially credited to Alejandro Escovedo, Carrie Rodriguez, Ron Sexsmith and others will grace the album.

He’s plenty open to other projects, however, and said he’d love to do another Troubadours record and tour when the band can convene again.

“I can fit in a lot of niches,” he said. “I could do a bebop record. I could do a country record. I could do a hip-hop record, or a folk record. I think a straight blues record would be kind of a no-brainer, too. I’d love to play with a really good bluegrass band. You just try to find ways not to be bored.”

Lest anyone think, however, that Popper will stray from Blues Traveler for too long, he recognizes what a vital force it remains.

“It’s a gift to be in a band that long,” he said. “As long as Blues Traveler exists, I want to see how far it’ll go. It should be a platform from which you can launch forays, so you can keep things fresh in the band. You become victimized by your own success as a band measured in decades because everyone knows what your sound is. You’ve lost the ability to surprise people. But, there’s an asset to that as well. People know what you are, and you can have your conversation in that context.”

They’ll be much of that conversation in 2012.

“It’s been 25 years! We leave our markets alone as much as we can this year, so next year we can descend like a plague of locusts,” Popper said of Blues Traveler’s anniversary tour plans. “Next year, you’ll be pretty sick of us. And if you’re not, rest assured we’ll gradually wear you down.”

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